VATICAN CITY – The Catholic Church must make it easier to remove priests who abused minors, a Vatican commission said Tuesday in its first report on child protection.

The head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, established by Pope Francis in 2014, said the Church was emerging from a “dark period” in which “Church leaders have tragically failed those we are called to shepherd.”

US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, a former archbishop of Boston who has spent decades listening to abuse survivors, said in a press conference that a new era had begun, “where responsibility, care and concern for victims is beginning to bring light into the darkness.”

Abuse scandals have rocked the church around the world, and the decade-old commission has faced criticism over its role and organization, with several top members resigning.

The commission said its first 50-page report “focused on the policies, procedures and mechanisms required by Church norms established to keep children and vulnerable adults safe”.

READING: The Pope’s commission against abuse will publish its first report

It hoped in the future to “address the incidence of abuse, including the issue of progress in reducing and preventing abuse.”

The report warns, however, that progress around the world has varied dramatically.

In some regions, clerical abuse was not yet a “publicized problem within their societies”, while resource protection was “inadequate” in parts of Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

It recommended giving victims more access to their files “to address the concern of opaque canonical processes as a source of re-traumatisation”.

It also called for clarification of the responsibilities of individual departments in dealing with cases of abuse to ensure their timely management.

The report said the Church needed to simplify its process for removing abusive priests, citing “the need for a disciplinary or administrative procedure that provides an effective avenue for resignation or removal from office.”

But he did not provide further details on how this should be done, nor did he specify whether action would be taken against priests convicted of abuse or only suspected.

– “Dare to denounce” –

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has taken numerous steps to combat abuse, from opening internal Church documents to punishing high-ranking clergy. He imposed the obligation to report suspicions of sexual assault to Church authorities.

But clergy are still not required to report abuse to civil authorities, unless the country’s laws require it, while any disclosures made in the confessional remain private.

In its work, the commission consulted with victims of abuse and published various statements from them in focus groups.

“Who would have told me that the least difficult part of this process would be the abuse! The truly awful thing is what happens when you dare to report, that’s when the world really comes crashing down on you,” read one.

Each year, the commission reviewed 15 to 20 bishops’ conferences, representing local churches, and in doing so, said it hoped to review the entire Church on five or six reports.

Part of the body’s mandate is to help local churches develop guidelines, acknowledging that previously “church leaders too often made ad hoc decisions at their own discretion and without reference to acceptable standards.”

The report highlighted the challenges in different regions. In Mexico, he cited difficulties in passing reports of abuse to civil authorities and, in Belgium, little oversight of Belgian priests working in Latin America, Africa or Asia.

A “culture of silence” and taboo around sexual abuse prevents such cases from being reported in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, African countries where “safeguarding culture is a new concept”.

Globally, he acknowledged that a challenge remains “prioritizing the Church’s reputation over victim/survivor support”.

In Europe, despite several measures to combat clerical sexual abuse, the report found frustration among victims over the slow processing of cases within the Church, which waits for the conclusion of any criminal proceedings before proceeding.

The members of the abuse commission, appointed directly by the pope, are experts in fields related to safeguarding, from clinical psychology to law or human rights.

But two members representing abuse survivors resigned in 2017. Last year, influential German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner also resigned, complaining of “structural and practical problems”.

By Alexandria Sage